Obama envoy: World leaders worried about US on climate

President Obama’s new United Nations climate envoy says he has fielded questions from international allies on the fate of U.S. climate change commitments if a Republican wins this fall’s presidential election. 

“There is some concern globally about where we’re headed,” Jonathan Pershing, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, told reporters Monday. Pershing and others attended meetings at the UN over the weekend to mark the signing of the Paris climate deal. 

{mosads}Despite the concerns, Pershing said, “I think we were able to really address it with a couple of really telling points that were persuasive for folks.”

That included highlighting bipartisan congressional support for wind and solar tax credits — measures included a year-end spending deal reached after the Paris deal — as well as business sector commitments to clean energy.

He also said the U.S. will inevitably participate in a global clean energy market regardless of who is president, even if it’s a Republican dismissive of climate change, as leading candidates Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are. 

“The US is a global player and nobody really thinks that when the world market of $1 trillion or more dollars on an annual basis is out there on these new technologies, that the U.S. won’t be an active part of that, and probably a leader in that,” Pershing said. 

“While people raised this, it was more to be reassured, and they were not just reassured, they were quite confident, was my take,” he added. 

Administration officials have long warned the GOP not to let Obama’s climate commitments lapse if a Republican take office. Pershing’s predecessor, Todd Stern, said in February there would be “diplomatic consequences” if the next president pulls out of the climate deal, which was signed in New York on Friday. 

The U.S. and other nations met over the weekend to discuss next steps on the climate accord. The deal kicks in when 55 countries representing at least 55 percent of worldwide carbon emissions “join” the deal, and the signatures affixed to the deal Friday were simply the prelude to that step.

More than a dozen countries joined the deal on Friday and UN officials said at least 34 countries representing 49 percent of emissions have signaled their intention to join this year, a faster timeline than many expected.

Senior White House adviser Brian Deese said such an accelerated timeline will give negotiators a chance to eventually expand their climate change commitments, a necessary step to have any chance at meeting the accord’s goal of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

“The earlier that the Paris agreement enters into force and the earlier that key issues are resolved, the greater the momentum toward action will be both in terms of encouraging individual countries to act … but also in sending a signal to the private sector about the durability of the transition to low-carbon technologies.” Deese said. 

“I think that overall we saw real progress coming out of the weekend on that front.”